Entry Level 3D Printers Usage and Benchmarking
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Entry level 3D printers Usage and Benchmarking Bachelor’s thesis Kone- ja tuotantotekniikka (Mechanical Engineering) Riihimäki, 2014 Petri Heino ABSTRACT HAMK Riihimäki Kone- ja tuotantotekniikka (Mechanical Engineering) Author Petri Heino Year 2014 Subject of Bachelor’s thesis Entry level 3D Printers ABSTRACT This thesis was made as a primer for getting more involved and special- ized in 3D printing. The subject was proposed and the opportunity was provided by Aalto University's Digital Design Laboratory (ADD) located in the Otaniemi campus in Espoo city, in Finland. Ten different printers implementing four different 3D printing methods are introduced, with the machine prices ranging from 2000€ to 35000€. The writing is based on two months of intensive use and testing. The aim was to benchmark the printers and learn how to use them. A lot of new knowledge was acquired and the differences between a 2000€ printer and a 12000€ one became apparent. A well established base of knowledge was established for considerations of small-series manufacturing with the printers and their correct use and maintenance. Keywords 3D printers, FDM, FFF, SLA, SL, Stereolithography, Polyjet, inkjet. 3DP, powder printing, lamination Pages 61 p. TIIVISTELMÄ HAMK Riihimäki Kone- ja tuotantotekniikka (Mechanical Engineering) Tekijä Petri Heino Vuosi 2014 Työn nimi Entry level 3D Printers TIIVISTELMÄ Tämä päättötyö on tehty alustaksi erikoistumiselle 3D tulostimiin ja -men- etelmiin. Aalto-yliopiston Digital Design Laboratory (ADD) ehdotti työn aihetta sekä tarjosi tilaisuuden ja mahdollisuuden tehdä työtä. Digital Design Laboratory sijaitsee Otaniemen kampuksella Espoossa. 10 erilaista tulostinta jotka käyttävät 4 erilaista 3D tulostus -menetelmää esitellään. Laitteiden hinnat ovat välillä 2000 – 35000€. Kirjoitus perustuu kahden kuukauden intensiiviseen käyttökokemukseen ja testaamiseen.Tavoitteena oli benchmarkata tulostimet ja oppia käyttämään niitä. Työssä kertyi paljon uutta tietoa ja erot 2000€ ja 35000€ laitteen vä- lillä tulivat varsin selviksi. Työssä kehittyi hyvä tietopohja ja valmiuksia piensarjatuotantoa varten tu- lostimia käyttäen. Lisäksi tulostimien oikea käyttö ja huoltaminen nou- sivat selkeästi esiin työtä tehdessä. Avainsanat 3D tulostus, Stereolithografia, laminointi, pulveritulostus, pikavalmistus Sivut 61 s CONTENTS 1 INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................1 1.1 3D Printing nowadays.........................................................................................2 1.2 Terminology and technology...............................................................................3 1.2.1 Extrusion-based............................................................................................4 1.2.2 Photopolymerization-based..........................................................................5 1.2.3 Inkjetting-based............................................................................................6 1.2.4 Sheet lamination processes..........................................................................7 2 MATERIALS..............................................................................................................8 2.1 Wire filament materials.......................................................................................8 2.1.1 Build platforms for filament materials.......................................................14 2.2 Powder materials...............................................................................................15 2.3 Printable waxes.................................................................................................15 2.4 Liquid materials.................................................................................................15 3 THE PRINTERS......................................................................................................16 3.1 Extrusion-based printers....................................................................................17 3.1.1 Ultimaker 2.................................................................................................17 3.1.2 3D Touch....................................................................................................21 3.1.3 Gigabot.......................................................................................................22 3.1.4 UPrint SE Plus............................................................................................24 3.2 Stereolithography / Form 1+.............................................................................27 3.3 Inkjet printers....................................................................................................31 3.3.1 Objet 30 Scholar.........................................................................................31 3.3.2 Thermojet...................................................................................................35 3.3.3 ZPrinter 250 ..............................................................................................37 3.4 Sheet Lamination / Mcor Matrix 300................................................................39 4 BENCHMARKING THE PRINTERS.....................................................................42 4.1 Test prints..........................................................................................................43 4.1.1 Ultimaker 2.................................................................................................45 4.1.2 UPrint SE Plus............................................................................................51 4.1.3 Form 1 Plus................................................................................................53 4.1.4 Objet 30 Scholar.........................................................................................56 5 CONCLUSIONS......................................................................................................58 6 SOURCES................................................................................................................59 Appendix 1 Printer specifications Appendix 2 Test round-up Entry level 3D printers 1 INTRODUCTION 3D printing is a manufacturing technique that has also been called additive manufacturing and rapid prototyping. It is a method of manufacturing parts by adding material to build up a work piece incrementally, conversely to removing material from a blank as in machining. Making parts this way has several obvi- ous advantages, such as saving material and reducing the need of patterns for molds. Aalto University's Digital Design Laboratory (ADD) offered a chance for learning how to use their machines and to get to know their capabilities. ADD laboratory had 10 different 3D printers available at the time of writing (2014). Besides believing that 3D printers will get much more popular in the future as a manufacturing method, motivations for starting this work were to gain knowledge how to coordinate a 3D print- ing shop/factory, would the printers be good for commercial small scale manufacturing, and what are the strengths, weak- nesses and best applications for the printers available. Also learning how the different machines were constructed would provide a good chance to learn machine design perspectives. Before starting this thesis I had been interested in all kinds of ad- ditive manufacturing methods, but had only limited experience of using them, limited to RepRap building projects and using and improving a Minifactory 2 at my previous workplace. There- fore getting my hands on machines worth several thousand or tens of thousands of Euros was a unique and highly interesting opportunity for me. 1 Entry level 3D printers 1.1 3D Printing nowadays Extrusion-based desktop 3D-printer are getting widely popular, due to increasing visibility of the printers, but still industrial us- age is dominant. These industrial machines are made by large and professional companies, from which the biggest two are Stratasys and 3D Systems. For the cheapest printers there are many big and small companies making them around the world. The onset of popularization of the extrusion-based 3D printers was mostly set by expiration of crucial patents and the very suc- cessful open-source RepRap project. Also, freely distributed designs and building instructions play a huge role with services such as Thingiverse (www.thingiverse.com) The open-source hardware and software on the internet is com- monly distributed under either the GNU General Public License (GPL) or Creative Commons (CC)-licences. The CC-licences may have limitations to commercial use set by the publisher, the GNU GPL licence is a good example of a licence set to try to en- sure the work to remain in public domain and not hidden under commercial use only. These licences have representatives in many countries and have even been successfully used in court. (GNU GPL, 2007, GPL Violations, n.d. See also Creative Com- mons Case Study, n.d.). Huge advancements have been made lately in the methods where a laser beam or an electron beam is used for joining powder met- al together appropriately so that a work piece is formed, such as Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) or Direct Metal Laser Melting (DMLM) and are becoming competitors for traditional produc- tion methods with complicated designs especially in the aerospace industry. Recently in the 2014, General Electronics Aviation division established a 50 Million Dollar additive manu- facturing facility in USA.